Juvenile Justice in the Black Experience

3 units

This course examines the sociolegal past, present, and future of American juvenile justice, with a focus on the Black American experience. The course is organized in three parts. Part I surveys the late 19th- and early 20th-century development of the parental state, including its institutional centerpiece (the juvenile court), its principle legal subjects (dependents and delinquents), and how these took shape alongside the contemporaneous rise of American Apartheid. Part II examines several key changes and challenges in contemporary juvenile justice, including the transformation of this institution in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement and the endurance of racialized juvenile social control in the post-Civil Rights period. Finally, Part III considers possible futures of youth justice in the United States and beyond as well as practical strategies for achieving equal protection within and beyond the law. For AFAS majors, this course counts as Area Requirement 2.